Sabbath for Healing

I've gotten a winter cold (and so has my grandson), and am feeling pretty sluggish. Today I will take it easy and drink lots of tea.

Agenda:

1. Read "Revolutionary Witchcraft"

2. Connect to my ancestors

3. Ongo journal

1. Read "Revolutionary Witchcraft":

I'm reading this sweet little book by Sarah Lyons (2019) that I got from my daughter for Christmas. The subtitle is A Guide to Magical Activism.

Chapter 1 is A Witch's Place is in the Struggle. And I'm on a section called A Radical History of Witchcraft. 

In the early modern period, when Europe was switching to a capitalist economy, the church and state collaborated to wipe out witchcraft in order to usher in a a new paradigm and help to suppress people by controlling the female body and the land. Before this time, people didn't own the land - Kings and lords and the church controlled some territory, but the rest was unowned wilderness - called the commons. The commons were de-commodified - one could live there without paying anyone.

In the sixteenth century, people in power in Britain and Europe  began appropriating and dividing up the commons - this is called the enclosure movement - and after that everyone needed to pay for the right to live on land, so they had to constantly be working in order to just live. "This new worldview and economic order wasn't popular with the general population at first, and it required violence to take root" ... including shutting down peasant revolts, wiping out indigenous people in the western hemisphere, and eventually quieting the women, with the witch trials. More on this later.

2. Connect to my ancestors:

The "Magic in Action" a section for this first chapter is Connecting to the Ancestors. She talks about why I want to have "friends on the other side" and how my ancestors have a vested interest in my success. Then she addresses the angst we might feel about our ancestors: "All of us come from overlapping histories of oppression that helped create the problems we face today. Some of our ancestors were the oppressed and sometimes they were the oppressors, and either way we have wounded genes that were passed down through us that we need to heal if we are to fix the world."

There is more, which I will get to, but this week I will prepare to do some ancestor work.

3. Ongo journal:

I'm going back through this book by Catherine Madden and Jesse Weiss Chu (2022), focussing on the solo practices. The solo practices are meant to be done 5 days a week - 3 practices alternating with 2 "Rememberings", to allow you to go deep.

Day 1 this week is Mindfulness of Needs. 

1. Start with a 7-minute breathing meditation.
2. Then look at the Universal Needs list, and find one that speaks to me in the moment.
3. Take a minute to feel what I feel - touch the place in my body where I feel it, and describe the body sensations.
4. Make a card for that need, and include these queries: What do I feel when this need is satisfied? When not satisfied? What actions or words contribute to satisfaction?
5. Meditate on this need throughout the day, and make noes in my journal.